Home of the Leeds Labour Group on Leeds City Council

What the Tories grammar school plans mean for local government

In the past few months, we’ve seen Theresa May and her Tory colleagues talking seriously about taking the backward step to reintroduce the grammar school system. Labour understands that grammar schools widen the divide between children from disadvantaged backgrounds and those from more privileged ones and have no place in a society where every child gets the best start in life.

It’s an absolute disgrace that the Tory Government are proposing to categorise children from the age of eleven by way of a test that can easily be abused by those with the cash to do so. This dangerous strategy is underpinned by the Government’s wrongly held view that selective schools are best placed to support underperforming schools.

We know that grammar schools are over representative of advantaged pupils from families with the skills and educational background to support them. Will these grammar schools really be able to improve schools with a greater mix of disadvantaged, lower achieving pupils and the associated problems of child poverty? I don’t believe they will but luckily we know that local government has a proven track record when it comes to school improvement.

Recent data gathered by the Local Government Association has shown that local authorities have more success in raising school standards than academies or free schools. The LGA say that almost nine out of ten council-run primary and secondary schools are rated as Good or Outstanding, which is a higher number than among academies and free schools. Richard Watts, the Chair of the LGAs Children and Young People’s Board, has said that local authorities have continued to prove their effectiveness in raising school standards using their relationship with schools and their in-depth knowledge of their local areas. He has gone on to question the ability of unaccountable Regional School Commissioners to turn around underperforming schools across large geographic areas they know nothing about. I would also seriously question their ability to turn around schools with a pupil make-up of which they have virtually no experience dealing with and very little desire to gain any. and have demonstrated very little desire to gain any understanding.

Social segregation is not the answer to educational improvement, the answer is real investment and real support through local authorities who know their schools, know their areas and have the experience of delivering the best possible outcomes for pupils and teachers.